With the painstaking research and highly readable prose that are his hallmarks,
Farley Mowat recounts the grim fate of the wildlife of the North Atlantic seaboard
after the arrival of European man. Whales, once one of the most complex and
stable life forms on Earth, were virtually eradicated. Great auks, numbering in
the hundreds of millions, were driven extinct. Creatures as diverse as walruses
and seals, cod and cormorants nearly suffered the same fate, seeing their numbers
reduced by as much as 95 percent.

Going beyond the grisly facts and figures, Mowat points to a way to right the balance,
to revolt against the "killer beast" we have become.
Printed in Canada.(paperback, 560 pages.)